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Comment Re:Hope it doesn't affect me. (Score 1) 312

While I know you are just being funny, you might also like to know that such sensitivity training is being pursued for people way down here in the deep south.

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20111114/NEWS01/111114016/-1/7daysarchives/Southern-Miss-students-sorority-probation-after-blackface-incident

There are other articles that explain the sensitivity and cultural education sanctions against these students, the story is starting to get too old to browse as easily as last week, so I only post a single link.

While I indeed thought that you made a good "Funny", I thought that you might also like to know that these things do actually occur and that some people do actually face the threat of "sensitivity training" for painting the face. I don't think that these students took the time to add the little white parts around the mouth, but I can't be certain, as the news media here doesn't seem to be revealing any photographic evidence.

Comment Re:Just that pesky Constitution (Score 1) 949

You seem to be quoting the Delcaration of Independence, not the Constitution of the United States. Otherwise, I agree to the basis of your viewpoint on this. Also, the right to be protected against "unlawful search and seizure", need not be recognized as the people have a primary right to be protected against, and also seek remedy for, any unlawful act done by our government. The term should quoted as "unreasonable search and seizure". I believe that it is here that the "reinterpretation" is occurring. By making search and seizure more commonplace, it helps take away the notion of "unreasonable" to more people, searchers and victims alike. These are the types of "reinterpretation" to be aware of, as they don't require the demanding procedure to actually amend the Constitution.

Comment Re:What do you bet... (Score 1) 509

The idea behind regulation is not to infringe upon the right to bear arms, but to encourage those arms to be handled properly, in a way that doesn't needlessly endanger others. As it is now, with firearms, we can't have people just walking around and pointing a loaded gun at people without a just cause for doing so. Such a person would be showing that they can't assume the responsibility that comes with bearing a weapon.

This is much the same idea as with the freedom of speech being limited to not abusing it to create a panic or riot when there is no clear and present danger that requires such speech.

Nukes occupy a special niche in the known arsenal of men. You can't easily create a nuke in your backyard, so it wouldn't be too difficult to regulate the sale/transfer of components or a complete nuke to another person. The sales and transfer of nukes is already heavily regulated, and these regulations appear to be sufficient, as we haven't had an accidental deployment of them ever, or a malicious use of them (where somebody in control of the weapon used it in a way that was unauthorized). Now the regulations that are already in place can appear to be Orwellian when applied to the average Joe, but I would assume that for the most part, they are necessary to ensure they safety of the people who would likely be affected if something untoward were to happen. A person that doesn't recognize the necessity of being regulated or inspected when they are/will be in possession of a weapon that can level a whole city if accidentally fired, and sees such a policy as "too Orwellian" would be a person who would not be allowed to possess those arms.

Comment Re:What do you bet... (Score 1) 509

In order for the nuke to be stored there, it would have to be resistant to such an attack. The planes that smashed into the WTC in 2001 were not very far away from Indian Point. In fact, one of the planes flew right overhead. Those towers would've withstood such an attack, which might be a reason why they weren't targeted.

But without regulation, it would probably be pretty messy if such an event were to occur.

Comment Re:What do you bet... (Score 1) 509

You are absolutely right. I think that a shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile to be a vital component of a home defense arsenal. When we have enemies that use aircraft as weapons against people, it's only proper that people should be able to defend against such weapons.

The only "that's different" part that you might hear from me is from the possibility of negligence in the securing and maintenance of such weapons can be hazardous to the environment or population, and in some circumstances, it would be prudent to have laws that help encourage responsibility in securing, maintaining, and testing some of the more dangerous weapons, by making it a crime (misdemeanor or felony depending on the type of weapon) to neglect to secure a weapon properly to prevent unauthorized use, to neglect to maintain the weapon properly, or to test fire the weapon in a manner that constitutes a danger to other people or their property. I would also support periodic inspection and regulation of some of the most dangerous weapons. Such an approach would have the effect of keeping nukes from people who aren't capable of keeping them secured, while still allowing people who have the resources and capability to exercise their rights.

Comment Re:Before the arguments start? (Score 1) 517

The jury deliberates in secret. The jury returns a verdict. Judgement in a case depends on the jury returning a verdict. The jury can arrive at a verdict through any means they desire, including determining whether a law is valid or not, whether the facts fit the law, whether the facts are actually facts, or even flipping coins. As long as they all agree on the verdict and they deliberate in secret there is nothing that can be done about this.

Juries are the most powerful entities in our government, more powerful than the legislative, executive, and judicial branches combined. No person can be convicted, or even tried, for a felony, unless first indicted by a grand jury. On top of that, no person can be convicted of any crime, felony or misdemeanor, unless a jury returns a guilty verdict, excepting crimes where there is no trial, due to a guilty plea.

The fact that you don't seem to understand this simple concept is evidence that you've been hoodwinked. As P.T. Barnum was known for saying, "a sucker is born every minute". I was also suckered by this years ago (so I'm not really picking on you, just trying to wake you up), but I've spent some time reading up on the topic, and I've learned just how bad things really are, and have been for years now.

Comment Re:Before the arguments start? (Score 1) 517

I'll remember your logic the next time I want to buy a firearm that's legal in PA but illegal in my home state of NY. What's the worst that could happen?

You get shot and killed while defending your right to bear arms.

I wouldn't worry about it. Since you seem to acknowledge an unconstitutional law is a valid law in NY, this situation is unlikely to happen.

Comment Re:"Obscenity"? (Score 1) 229

Do keep in mind that the legal definition is really, past all the smoke and mirrors, whatever the jury finds distasteful.

There, fixed that for you.

This is not something that should be left in the hands of the judge.

Don't think freedom means a damn thing if the government gets to play with the meaning of words, or if whatever is popular reigns over individual rights.

They do this all the time by trying to separate the synonymous meanings of "arrest" and "detain" to sidestep the laws they've sworn to abide by.

Comment Re:I wonder about this (Score 3, Informative) 182

First, gtk+ is for C, while qt is for C++. Another major difference is that qt is more than just a widget toolkit, but an application runtime environment that provides widgets. This means that qt provides string handling, database connectivity, etc., although you don't have to use anything but the widgets and application objects, if you wish.

I thing maemo is mostly written in C, so some parts will probably have to be rewritten in C++.

This article may help a bit, although it only compares qt with gtkmm (the c++ bindings to gtk):
http://www.telegraph-road.org/writings/why.html

This article should be taken with a grain of salt, as it's pretty old, and may be inaccurate today.

I started using gtk+ with python, way back in the 1.x versions. The 2.x bindings for python were much better, allowing me to write more pythonic code using gtk+.

Later on, I decided to try out qt3, and I haven't looked back since. While it took a bit of getting used to, I found that it was easier to use qt, rather than gtk+, although I'm hard pressed to figure out exactly why.

One of the things I liked about qt over gtk+ was the separation of the layout widgets and the interactive widgets. Coming from gtk, this was something that took me a while to understand, but once I got the hang of it, I liked it, and think that it's a better way to organize the widgets. With gtk, a vbox holds child widgets, such as buttons, labels, etc. So if you want to rearrange them in an hbox, you have to destroy those widgets and make new ones in the hbox. In qt, the layout widgets are of type "layout", and you can only have layout children in layout widgets. The interactive widgets are children of the main widget (or a child widget of the main widget). These widgets are "placed" into the layout, but can be removed without being destroyed, allowing you to rearrange the layout more easily.

I also prefer the signal/slot mechanism in qt over the callback mechanism in gtk. On the average, it makes it easier to glue your widgets together, but there are a few circumstances where a callback mechanism is preferred, in which case you have to invent a new signal(s) and chain them together. This is because there is no order of slots called when a signal is emitted.

Also, the qt documentation was better, more organized, and easier to read than the gtk docs (at least around the time I switched ~2004).

Probably the largest reason why we're even having this discussion is due to licensing. Gtk gained a lot of popularity, due qt being licensed under the trolltech license, which restricted developers from using the free version in commercial products. The switch to gpl didn't do much to change this, although you could then create commercial products, but you also had to release the source for those products. So if you wanted to keep the source closed and use qt, you still had to purchase a commercial qt license.

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